Weinberg Castle (Switzerland)

Weinberg Castle above Romenschwanden, municipality of St. Margrethen

Weinberg Castle from the west (Lake Constance on the left in the background)

The Weinbergschlosshotel is at least derived from the 15th century and in the 1980s the castle converted manor house, now home to a vineyard , in the field of political community St.Margrethen in the canton of St. Gallen , Switzerland .

The attachment

It is located west of St. Margrethen, above Lake Constance , at 546  m above sea level, west above the hamlet of Romenschwanden on Romenschwandenstrasse on the so-called "Wiberg". The main building, a massive, elongated building with a floor plan of around 28 × 11 m and with foundation walls, some of which are a good 1.5 meters thick, has two floors on a high basement and eight axes on the courtyard side. It is flanked to the east by a large, rectangular, four-story corner tower . A somewhat smaller and not quite as high stair tower does not protrude quite centrally in front of the north-northwest facing facade, as does the corner tower. The building is covered by a hipped roof with dormer windows . Between the two towers protruding from the facade is a terrace , to which a wide, twelve-step flight of stairs leads up from the courtyard. Both towers have steep tent roofs . In the west and east, elongated farm buildings adjoin the palace, which border the courtyard on both sides.

history

The former aristocratic seat is listed in the Appenzell deed book on February 9, 1470 . For a long time it was owned by a branch of the Lords of Salis from Seewis in the Prättigau . Albert Dietegen von Salis (1669–1740) released the estate in 1716 for an amount of 400 guilders from the annual court tax and from the “Eternal Promise” to the community of St. Margrethen, and the estate was then given as a fief and finally sold. As a result, it had a number of changing owners.

Viticulture

prehistory

St. Margrethen was still one of the largest wine-growing towns in the canton of St. Gallen in the 19th century; the coat of arms of the municipality from 1634 with the grape with 17 berries and four leaves reminds of this past. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, however, phylloxera decimated the local vineyards, and the heavy winter frosts in the early 1960s put an end to viticulture in St. Margrethen. It wasn't until the mid-1980s that there was a new beginning.

Since 1980

In 1980, Rudolf Kessler († 1996), the father of the current owner, bought the abandoned and increasingly dilapidated winery with the associated vine parcels that had been fallow since the 1960s . The manor house was extensively renovated between 1982 and 1983, expanded like a castle and expanded with an annex. In 1984 the first plot of land , 0.8 hectares on the immediately adjacent “Schlossberg”, was planted with vines of the Müller-Thurgau and Blauburgunder (Pinot Noir) varieties . In the next year the first bottling of almost 330 liters of wine took place and with it a new start in viticulture in St. Margrethen.

In 1987 about 3000 bottles were filled. Since then, production has been expanded by leasing more plots: 1987 and 1991 the "Sonnenhalde" plot, where the old Torkel ( wine press building ) testifies to the former importance of viticulture in St. Margrethen, and in 1988 the "Burghalde" plot below the Grimmenstein castle ruins . Since 1994, receives local church St.Margrethen their own, from the vineyard Schloss Weinberg from the vines of the "Sonnenhalde" gekelterten Wine , the year the traditional "Chräs- and wine sales" on Saturday before the first Advent is available for purchase.

literature

• Rolf Künzler: Viticulture in St. Margrethen since the mid-1980s. In: St. Margrethen Tourist Office: St. Margrether Mosaik , No 116, April 2008, p. 5
• Hermann Kellenberger and Guido Schneider: Viticulture in St. Margrethen; A historical look back into the Middle Ages. In: St. Margrethen Tourist Office: St. Margrether Mosaik , No 116, April 2008, p. 3f.

Web links

Commons : Schloss Weinberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Website of the Schlosskellerei Kessler
• Weinberg Castle wir.ch
• photo

Footnotes

1. ^ Canton of St. Gallen: GIS maps AREG
2. ↑ The "Eternal Promise" secured the Rheintaler communities a right of first refusal on goods in their territories and was intended to prevent the "homeland" from being "sold out".
3. ↑ Captain Albert Dietegen von Salis: ransom from the ordinary annual court tax and from the 'Eternal Promise'
4. ↑ Viticulture in St. Margrethen since the mid-1980s ( Memento of the original from January 25, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Mosaic No. 116, edition 4.2008, published by the St. Margrethen Tourist Office 
5. ↑ Chräs = fir branches.

Coordinates: 47 ° 27 '22.2 "  N , 9 ° 36' 12.6"  E ; CH1903:  seven hundred and sixty-three thousand two hundred thirty-two  /  258406